Punishment
by ProcurerFaith
Summary: Leo, Mikey and Raph take their integrity and smash it. Blind with rage and grief, they rain violent revenge on the Purple Dragons for the death of Don.


**_Disclaimer: _**I do not own Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and I am not making any money from this fic. TMNT belongs to Eastman and Laird (although I gather mostly on the 'Laird' side of that duo now).

**_Author's Note:_** Okay, I've been out of the posting thing for a million years. This is probably not a good place to start – eheh ;; I was just dying to post something and somehow the thing that was ready for posting ended up being my most OOC piece… xx Ghskfskfskfsk…

For those of you with nervous dispositions, this fic is rated for violence and some gore – _please be warned!_ There is also one use of language. Character death is the pivot of this fic, so again, for those of you who are sensitive, please be warned!

Let me know what you think:)

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**_Punishment_**

His vision was already greyed and dark; he could barely hear now, the only sounds available to him were his own breathing and the weak beat of his heart in his chest. Somewhere in the muddle of his senses he thought he could hear the whirring of the PC fan in the next room.

He'd lost the ability to move and so all that remained for him now was to wait for death to claim him. He knew he didn't have long; his faculties were intact enough to know that. He could feel the bizarre sensation of numbness encroaching on the pain and felt blessed relief that at least the agony was beginning to pass.

He'd done all he could. He'd fought as hard as it was possible to fight, but there were too many of them – and taking April had made him angry. Anger was something Donatello so rarely felt that when he did feel it, it was all-consuming. And consume him it had, and he had left a bloody trail in his wake - until the fury had caused him to make a grave error.

He hadn't seen the guns.

If he had, he could have moved aside, leapt above them, disarmed the user in seconds.

But he had been half-blind with rage, and he hadn't seen them.

He wore the open scars of thirteen bullet wounds to prove it.

He had taken down six more of his attackers before succumbing to his wounds and dropping to his knees, hearing April's voice screaming his name, tasting blood in his mouth and feeling it's tacky trail on his lips.

And amidst all this, amidst the screaming pain of the wounds that robbed him of his breath – and would rob him of his life – all he could think of was how he had failed to rescue his friend, how he had failed her and left her to the mercy of the Purple Dragons who, keen to savour their victory, had continued to swarm in the room like flies around a corpse.

And when he fell to the carpet, when his head was lifted by the tails of his mask, when the Purple Dragon who had beaten him with inferior skills but a superior weapon laughed in his face and spat in it, all he felt was his own shame.

A trace of the shame remained, wound around his heart like the snake in the garden, even as he lay dying. Even as his blood stained the carpet a deep shade of red in an ever widening circle around him, his sadness was for others and not himself.

He knew that his brothers would find him. Eventually, it would be them who came looking, or perhaps it would be Casey just coming to idly visit April, and they'd find her gone and him dead - and the first of those things distressed him more than the other.

He couldn't move his legs anymore. His hand, though, crept across the carpet, squelching in the rapidly cooling and congealing lifeblood all around him. He knew that the deep ache in his body was due to loss of blood, that the thirst that plagued him was his body's way of trying to get him to replace the lost fluid – but his body wasn't aware, as he was, that he couldn't get up to answer it's plea.

He knew too much really – he knew why he felt every ounce of pain, why his body inflicted agonising cramps on him, why his breaths got shorter as his lungs filled with blood and the fluid created by the irritation to the alveoli.

He was drowning and bleeding to death all at the same time.

The thoughts in his mind jumbled up as he tried to put the day in order, tried to remember something comforting as his body slowly cut the strings that attached his spirit to it.

There was warmth in his heart as he remembered his family – as he remembered Mikey sitting in his favourite place before the TV stack, as he remembered Raph exercising and combining moves on his punchbag, as he remembered Leo refining his skills, as he remembered his Master drinking tea on the sofa – all things they had done that morning.

Even in death, though they were not with him in body, they were with him in spirit.

On the edge of his fractured hearing, he heard a commotion suddenly. It barely mattered; he was beyond any attack that could be launched on him now, he knew. Still, it did not stop years of finely honed instinct demanding he reach for his bo, demanding that he at least not be taken lightly – that he do something to stop any more shame being brought to his family. Even though he could not reach his weapon, his fingers strained as well as they could, searching for that which was distant to him.

He could not reach. He was suddenly turned skywards; he felt his skin draw away from the blood on the carpet, felt his body lifted and felt a careful hand against his cheek.

He recognised the eyes he gazed into, the blue mask framing their agony like a picture, frozen in time.

In his mind, he spoke his brother's name, but in reality he uttered not a sound.

He heard Leo call his name, desperation on his face, but Don couldn't answer. His mouth was glued shut by blood and pain, and he had not the strength to open it.

In his mind, he apologised. In his mind, he wept tears that his body was too tired and broken to shed. It mattered not; his brother seemed to be shedding them for him.

As he gazed blankly, two more faces appeared above him, blotting out the meagre light that filled the room. Their expressions mirrored Leo's and Donatello was saddened. Saddened by the fact that his brothers had found him so early, and yet so late, saddened that they were weeping because of him, saddened that they spoke comforting words to him and not to each other in this time of their need.

There were reassurances from Leo, words promising vengeance from Raph and frantic mumblings from Mikey. All so precious, all so appreciated and loved, all so omnipresent at the last. Don wished that he could speak, that he could answer their reassurances, that he could thank them for the pain that proved they loved him. Wished that he could thank them for fifteen years of unconditional love, that he could reassure them that the pain would soon be over for him, even if he knew it would not be over for them.

He could not even raise a hand to touch his eldest brother's face, to wipe away his tears, to promise him that it would be alright even though it never could. His body did not have the resources to create tears, nor the strength to shed them; but through his eyes he spoke to his brothers, through his eyes, until they were grey and dim and the light had ebbed slowly away from them, like moonlight on the tide.

Leo felt numb as he watched the last of Donatello's life ebb away and the body in his arms relaxed totally. He gnashed his teeth, tightening his grip on Donatello's neck, pulling his brother forward and at the same time lowering himself, desperate agony driving his mind wild.

"No no no, Donny, no…" he moaned, rocking backwards and forwards on his knees with his lost brother in his arms – the only safe place for him now. Stricken sobs burst forth and Mikey backed away, frightened by his brother's intense grief. He had never seen Leo so broken, never seen his emotions so exposed, like the raw flesh bared in a wound.

"No, this… this can't be happening…" Raph's voice was weak as he swallowed back the bowling ball in his stomach, covering his mouth to keep the soul-deep sickness in. "He can't be dead… Donny can't be dead…"

Mikey, afraid of the truth but unable to escape it's all-pervading reach, backed away further, eventually climbing to his feet and stumbling out of the room. The feel of Don's blood on his legs made him feel sick, and soon after Leo and Raph heard the sounds of nausea coming from the bathroom. Soon after that came the sound of the shower being turned on and the fervent sobbing of their baby brother.

Raph stood, wanting to go to Mikey, as Leo shook and shivered with shock and continued to hold Donatello in his arms, as though protecting him one last time; as if his arms alone could turn Death back, make him give up his winnings, make him relinquish his ever-grip on his beloved brother.

As if wanting it with all his heart and soul and mind were enough to change it.

Leo could hear Raph trying to cajole Mikey out of the bathroom, and the desperate screams of grief his efforts raised. Leo was barely conscious of Raph kicking in the door and rushing the bathroom, throwing himself around his weeping brother like a fire blanket, trying to extinguish the flame that burned his spirit.

And Leo knew, he knew that he would have to go home, go on his knees to his father, tell his father that one of his beloved sons would no longer be coming home, would no longer be in his corner, would no longer be the voice of scientific reason, would no longer eat with them, live with them, fight with them, love them, defend them.

If there was anything left of his heart to break, it broke then, knowing that as the oldest it was his job to tell their father, that his failure would be felt even if never implied, that their lives would never, _could_ never be the same.

Time passed, but not the same way as it had before. Their eyes, washed clean of emotion and colour, were painful to see. Yet they gathered up their weapons, covered their brother's body with a blanket, put a cross of their brother's blood on their chests and left.

They still had to find and claim back April.

And if they had been a force to be reckoned with before, then tonight they would blow expectations wide open, would make enough men bleed that even the Gods would notice.

Leo carried the bloodstained bo on his back. He would use his brother's weapon tonight, as well as his own. He would make them remember his brother's name, before they spat their own blood, before he made them breathe their last.

The Purple Dragons had been proud enough of their deed to leave a calling card. It was the pride that would come before the fall.

Hun stood before his Purple Dragons, praising them in the ring, whipping them up into a frenzy, making them drunk on their own success. It was success that would be short-lived. Before the night was over, the warehouse would be painted with the blood of Dragons, the ring coated in the red of vengeance.

Suddenly, a voice rang out across Hun's words. It was ragged, and shadowed, but still strong enough.

"We've come to collect our friend.

"And we bring a message from our brother."

A Purple Dragon in the room dropped to his knees dumbly, a tanto buried to the hilt in his forehead.

"What the-?" said Hun, his deep baritone showing his surprise clearly. The voice continued somewhere above him.

"It's a message he wants us to pass on to all of you.

"We've come to claim back what's ours. And to give each and every one of you what's coming to you.

"That way, he can go to his eternal rest knowing that his honour is intact."

Hun indicated for two of his sidekicks to come to him, but a dark shadow fell momentarily and they were swept off their feet. When Hun looked again, there were only heads on the ring mat before him. The bodies were still flying across the room. They crumpled bloodily into a wall, twitched and lay still.

"You want your friend?" Hun said, indicating to two more accomplices, who brought forward April, tied and gagged. She was blindfolded. Her face was stained with tears, and a gash on her cheek had wept blood across the side of her face and her chin.

"Then come get her!" Hun exclaimed, pulling a commando knife from his belt and pushing it hard against April's throat. She gagged, her senses heightened by her inability to see.

"Don't mind if we do." Came the bodiless response, and Hun readied himself. There was the quick hiss of steel cutting air, and suddenly Hun crumpled, a katana blade embedded in his throat. There was time only for April to gasp before she simply disappeared from view, silently carried up into the high beams of the warehouse by a thin rope. For the first time, the Purple Dragons looked up as one.

Before them, in the shadows of the roof, they saw three dark and brooding turtles.

They had not come to take prisoners.

They had come to take lives.

"This is for Donatello." A different voice, scratchy and harsh this time. High above them, two of the hanging lights were taken out, shattering hot glass across the Purple Dragons.

That was all it took. Their leader fallen, the Purple Dragons rushed at each other in a frenzy. One of them had the smarts to pull a handgun from his boot, but it was a foolish mistake. Raphael was craving first blood, and by the light of the flash of the gunshots, the Purple Dragon saw Raph bearing down on him, teeth clenched, sai raised in both hands, vengeance in his eyes.

It was the last thing he saw.

Two Purple Dragons who stood numbly together found themselves with cracked skulls as Michelangelo entered the scene. He was fast – too fast for the Purple Dragons. Their grey matter spewed across the wall behind them, smattering across two of their comrades. But they knew little about it as the bo Leo carried in Don's memory cracked upwards under their noses, forcing the broken bone into the base of their brains.

Turning, blind with anguish, Leo pulled out his remaining katana and drove it deep into the stomach of a Purple Dragon approaching behind him with a chair. Leo's eyes were as wild as the Purple Dragon's were terrified, and he wrenched the katana upwards, spilling the Dragon's intestines like rope.

Raph embedded a sai in the eye of a Dragon even as he turned to kick the gun from another's hand. Mikey quickly despatched the one Raph had kicked down; the loss of one brother was already more than he could stand. In one swing Leo beheaded the Dragon who approached Mikey from behind, and in a second swing batted the head across the warehouse with the bo, into the arms of a Purple Dragon heading for the door, who screamed.

Raph wrenched his sai from the eye of his last opponent, just in time to ram it into the shoulder of a second and push his other sai upwards through his throat. The Purple Dragon poured blood over Raph's hands, but his sight was already blind to all but blood.

Mikey pulled his nunchakus around the throat of another Purple dragon, high-kicking him forward into the chain and crushing his windpipe. He kicked him again to get him out of the way and saw a Dragon approach Leo from behind with a knife in his hand. Leo, who was currently breaking the knees and elbows of a Dragon trying to crawl away, was unaware of the threat, but Mikey saw all too clearly and dived forward, swinging his nunchakus and wrapping one around the wrist of the offender, pulling him sharply backwards.

"Nuh-uh. Bad Purple Dragon." Said Mikey, as the blade dropped to the floor. He repeatedly kicked the Dragon in the face, again and again and again, until his own mother would not have recognised his features. He heard gurgling and jumped, doing one more flying round kick and breaking the Dragon's neck.

"Mikey, duck!" called Raph quickly, and Mikey did ask instructed as Raph embedded a sai into the hand of a Dragon wielding a gun. Suddenly Leo barrelled through the pair of them, taking more from the gunman than his hand. Both arms fell away from the body of the Dragon and he looked horror-struck as he fell, spurting blood all across the melee.

"No guns." Growled Leo. He panted, suddenly tired now that he had stopped. In amongst the bloodshed, he knew that he did not have time to pause, but it did not stop him doing so. He raised a hand and placed it on his chest – across the place where he had marked himself with the bloody cross. Ten times the amount of Donatello's blood now covered that spot, but Leo still connected it to his departed sibling. A new strength filled him and he turned, bo in hand, disarming a Dragon with it and cleaving him shoulder to waist with his katana.

His piercing kiai filled the room, and put the fear of God into the remaining Dragons.

Raph had a Dragon by the throat, and struck him repeatedly with the knuckle of his sai, crushing his windpipe with sheer brute force. He couldn't even see the Dragon's blood anymore; all he could see was his brother Donatello bleeding and dying on the floor before him and he, Raphael, powerless to do anything to stop it.

Mikey disarmed two more Purple Dragons, one of whom dropped to his knees and begged for his life. Mikey snarled. He knew, that if Don had breath left in his body when the Dragons had left him for dead, he would never, _ever,_ have lowered himself to begging for his life.

The Dragon before him was nothing but filth, and therefore deserved to be treated as such.

Mikey raised his foot and rammed his heel into the face of the Dragon, who spurted blood everywhere from his nose. Spinning his nunkchakus, Mikey struck the temple pressure points of the Dragon, who fell senseless.

Leo pushed a Purple Dragon up against the wall with Don's bo, forcing the wooden weapon into his throat.

"I want the one who took the life of the turtle who owned this. Tell me where I can find him, and I'll let you live." His voice was scratchy and deep, twisted by the torment in his heart and the bloodshed all around him. The Purple Dragon banged his head repeatedly against the wall and said,

"He'll kill me if I tell you, man!"

"I'll kill you if you don't" Leo rasped, pushing the bo into the Dragon's throat until he could see the whites of his eyes fill with blood. When he realised that he would get no more from this Purple Dragon, he snarled dismissively.

"Are you Spartacus? Are you _all _Spartacus?!" bellowed Leo, dropping the heavily breathing Dragon to the ground. He spun and slashed the throat of the Dragon, allowing the blood to pool around his feet before moving on to his next kill.

"If you give me the one who killed Donatello, we'll let the rest of you live!" bellowed Leo, even as he disarmed and fatally wounded a Dragon who was foolish enough to head for him.

"We…_will_…Leo?" growled Raphael, as he shoved both sai into the brain of a dragon through the nostrils.

"Yes! We will!" Leo snarled, and for a moment, the fighting paused.

"I want to bury my brother." Leo put a hand on his chest once more, drawing strength from knowing why he was here, smothered in blood. "I don't want to be here anymore! I don't care about any of you – I just want _him_."

There was silence for a moment. Suddenly, a shot rang through the air and Leo stepped forward, grabbing at his arm. Thanks to Mikey's intervention, the gunman had done nothing but graze his lower arm – but he had set the clock back to zero.

"You _bastards_! You'll _all_ die here tonight like the animals you are!" screamed Raph, launching himself at the nearest Purple Dragon and driving his sai into his stomach, twisting to rip up as much intestine as he could, to make the death as long and painful as was possible.

Leo didn't even feel the pain in his arm anymore, in his body. He wasn't enraged, he wasn't even angry – in fact, he was emotionless as he separated heads from bodies, shattered skulls, broke feet and arms and legs and shoulders and jaws and fingers.

_Donny…_

_ I'm sorry you had to die._

_ I'm sorry we couldn't do anything to save you._

_ I'm sorry we were too late._

_ I know what we do here tonight can never bring you back._

_ But what we do now, we do because we loved you._

_ We love you still._

_ We can't let what they did go unpunished._

_ You had thirteen gunshot wounds – I counted them. _

_ And when we have killed thirteen times thirteen of them, we will go home._

_ We will tell our father that his son is dead._

_ But that we dealt out vengeance that the Gods were jealous of, but that in his memory we will fight on. _

_ We will never forget you, Donny._

_ Our precious brother, we will never forget._

By the end of the hour, over one hundred and fifty bodies lay strewn across the warehouse – most of them less than intact; with limbs, heads and in some cases other body parts missing. The tired brothers kicked their way through the human carcasses, looking for any sign of life.

Doubtless some of the Purple Dragons had escaped with their lives – but they were few. Though none of the dragons had given up Donatello's murderer, there was a good chance that he lay among the dead.

The three remaining turtles would never truly know.

Leo shook his arms, spattering blood across the bodies. He didn't know if it was his or the enemy's, but it was getting on his nerves and the stench was making it hard to think.

"Somebody go get April. Make sure she doesn't see this - she shouldn't have to. Don wouldn't want it." Leo's voice was weak, a shadow of its former strength.

Now that the deed was done, he felt tired down to his very soul.

He rubbed his forehead with the side of his hand, scratching his head with his thumb as he did so.

There was so much to think about now. Before, all that had filled his mind was the determination to get the job done, to avenge his brother and destroy the Purple Dragons - but now he actually had to think. His thoughts travelled unconsciously to his lost brother, and the pain in his chest raised it's ugly head again.

The boys washed off the worst of the blood in the East River before returning to April's apartment. It could be argued that the East River wasn't that clean in the first place, but at least it didn't remind them of their vengeance. They found blood in their ears and in their noses, and still found tears in their eyes.

They washed the gore off one another's shells, finding comfort in each other's presence even if the absence of their dead brother stung like a whip.

When they returned with April to her apartment, they wrapped their brother in the blanket they had draped over him, raised April's carpet and threw it away, dispensing of it in the junk yard nearby.

April stood and watched, shocked to her very core.

She had lost a beloved friend that night. She would miss Donatello's gentle friendship, his white-fire intelligence, his muted common sense.

As she had lost a friend, the Turtles had lost a brother – one less of them, last of their kind. But there was a greater loss tonight for the turtles, a loss that had no identity and that they would not grieve until they had mourned their brother. They had lost more than a brother this night.

They had lost their integrity.

After many months, April eventually tore up the floorboards. They never came clean.

Together, the brothers slipped away into the night, carrying their dead ceremonially between them.

When they entered the lair, the Master knew immediately that everything was very wrong. He had experienced a prophetic dream in their absence and was broken to discover how accurate it was.

Leo dropped to his knees, having carried the body of his brother for the last leg of their painful journey home.

"Master…" he said, lowering his brother's body to the ground. Master Splinter's eyes were fixed on the form in the blanket as he dropped to his own knees.

"My sons… My beautiful sons…" he said, his voice breaking. "You are only three?"

Leo's eyes filled with tears.

"Yes, Master. We… we are only three."

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_fini_


End file.
